


What is written by the pen

by Akaihyou



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky's Plums, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It of Sorts, Phone Calls, What is written is hard to change or destroy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 14:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6961636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akaihyou/pseuds/Akaihyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky doesn't wait to be found in Bucharest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What is written by the pen

Bucky doesn’t wait to be found.

He’s become too comfortable in Romania, the former Winter Soldier scolds himself as he smashes the floorboards and pulls out his bag. No time to make it quiet. He swipes the partially filled notebook off the top of his refrigerator on his way out. Everything else that matters is in his bag. He’s never had visitors, but that’s no reason for carelessness. Earlier, he just hadn’t had it in him to touch the notebook a second longer. Negotiating his purchases at the local market was something he’d discovered to be soothing. Simple choices. The luxury, the expectation, that he _can_ negotiate something as simple as the price of fruit. He’d needed soothing right then. Needed the reminder that he can want and choose.

Fortuitous, Bucky supposes. If he hadn’t decided to buy plums, he’d probably be facing a tac team, a HYDRA retrieval squad, or, worse, Steve, right about now.

He didn’t do it. Whatever it was. He hasn’t yet stopped to read more than the headline but, for once, Bucky can be certain the crime wasn’t committed with his mismatched hands.  

Not that it matters. _What has been written by the pen cannot be erased by the axe, Soldier._

The stairwell flies past. Barely aware of his progress, body running a program it knows perfectly, Bucky emerges onto a familiar street suddenly far too open, populated, and dangerous.

Five blocks later, he stuffs a wad of bani into the mailbox of the young motorcycle enthusiast he noticed months ago, breaks the lock off the best of the bikes with his left hand, and forces himself to put on the helmet he finds dangling from the handlebars. The visor is black. It encloses his entire head. He feels like he can’t breathe in it, but he knows that part is entirely psychological. Something about the shape and color.

It’s not until he’s crossing the Danube on the ferryboat from Zimnicea that he stops to catch his breath and actually read the article.

 

* * *

 

 

More than horrifying, the bombing is _stupid_. Counter-productive, even, for the version of the Winter Soldier now being sold to the public. Bucky has to admit he’s not a fan of the Sokovia Accords, but that’s mostly because he knows every shadow organization on the planet is rubbing its hands with glee at the thought of the Avengers on a UN leash.

The image in the paper, on every TV news channel, is too good to be anything but deliberate. Why use his face? Why _show_ his face? No one revives the Winter Soldier except when there’s a use for him. No, Bucky knows better than that. Whoever this is _wants_ him.

Is it an attempt to destabilize Wakanda? Polarize the member countries of the UN? Divide the Avengers?

Bucky refuses to be used again.

 

* * *

 

 

It takes him fifty-one hours to do his research and put pieces together into something that makes sense. He doesn’t like the sense it makes.

Vasily Karpov is dead.

If anyone had the hardcopy of the Soldier’s codes, it would be Karpov.

Who has been found murdered in a way suggesting Sokovian black ops.

Whose residence had suffered damage consistent with a very thorough search.

Sokovian black ops. Seeking control of the Winter Soldier.

The Sokovia Accords. Ostensibly to prevent collateral damage of the kind suffered by Sokovia.

The Avengers. Captain America.

Steve, who has so far refused to sign.

Who will stand on principle, even if it kills him.

Who will fight for Bucky, even if it kills him. Even now.

Snatches of an old song seep unwanted into his thoughts. Bucky’s metal arm goes straight through the wall of his backup safe house. He doesn’t care. It’s not his apartment. It’s not home.

He doesn’t get to have those things.

 

* * *

 

 

“Your Highness? I know the man who set the bomb and murdered your father.”

“Who is this? How did you get this number?”

The new king of Wakanda sounds tired. The sort of tired produced by frustrated rage and carefully banked grief. Bucky has some experience with those emotions. Perhaps it’s not strange that T’Challa’s voice reminds him of the plums Bucky dropped on a Bucharest street.

He repeats himself, careful not to grip the phone too tightly. T’Challa’s not the only one tightly controlling his emotions. “The man who set the bomb at the UN and murdered your father. I can give you his name, his location, his probable motive,” he promises.

“Why should I believe you?” snaps the son of a murdered father.

“I learned of him because he was foolish enough to frame a ghost,” Bucky says, treading carefully on the edge of truth. “It is not wise to disturb the peaceful dead.”

On the other end of the connection, the silence is so profound, Bucky starts to wonder if he’s miscalculated. If T’Challa is stalling. If any second he will be... No. Bucky has adapted well to the day’s technology. He won’t be caught here. Wakanda is advanced, but not so advanced Bucky would have no warning.

He watches his timer run, his reported location bounce around the globe.

Eleven seconds. Malaysia.

Twenty. Canada.

Thirty. Argentina.

Thirty two. Portugal.

T’Challa says, “Winter Soldier?” The words are tightly clipped by the man’s restrained emotion.

 Bucky doesn’t let out a breath. He’s too well disciplined. Instead, he keeps his voice perfectly even and answers, “My name is Bucky Barnes. The man you are looking for is Helmut Zemo, formerly a Sokovian special operator.”

 

* * *

 

 

The damage is nearly done anyway. Steve’s managed to get himself arrested in Bucharest, even without Bucky. At least it’s just trespassing and interference. Steve was simply found in a place Captain America had no right to be at a time he should have been anywhere but in an abandoned Bucharest apartment prepared to take on all comers to save Bucky’s life.

T’Challa promises to try talking them all down. To explain Zemo’s likely plan. It doesn’t work, Steve’s too fixated on “saving” Bucky, but at least all the Avengers are together and it doesn’t come to blows.

Tony Stark puts his foot in his mouth, of course. Steve refuses to sign again.

In the end, though, T’Challa practices more of the diplomacy he had nearly abandoned and uses the mysterious capabilities of his country to explain his sudden certainty that the Winter Soldier has been framed by a grieving Sokovian bent on making the Avengers destroy themselves. For capturing Zemo, the full might of the Avengers is unnecessary. Iron Man and the Black Widow apprehend Zemo as part of a sanctioned operation.

Captain America announces he’ll consider signing, but only with far more negotiation and safeguards. His conditions include immunity for Bucky and the Sokovian girl, Wanda. Watching the news on a stolen tablet in his Zagreb safe house, Bucky wishes her luck and wishes he could either get drunk or go back in cryo. Oblivion is starting to sound nice again.

 

* * *

 

 

This time, T’Challa’s voice on the phone is drained, but less burdened. “Zemo confessed,” he tells Bucky. “You were right. The world owes you an apology, maybe even thanks.”

Bucky doesn’t even have to think about it. “No, it doesn’t,” he says. “I didn’t do this, but there’s plenty of blood on my hands.”

T’Challa is silent, waiting.

Bucky looks at the random locations flashing across the screen in front of him.

Uzbekistan. Ecuador. New Zealand. Ghana. Finland.

He can’t imagine himself any of those places. Can’t imagine himself anywhere. Now that book is in the hands of the UN, there is nowhere that might be safe.

“I can’t—” he breaks off.

“Is there nothing I can do for you, my friend?” T’Challa asks him. The kindness in the question steals Bucky’s breath.

 He can’t say there isn’t. A thought begins to crystallize.

“I’ll call you back,” he says, and cuts the connection. He has to think. Has to be sure.

 

* * *

 

 

The specs for a successful cryostasis chamber have been public since shortly after someone dug them out of the dumped HYDRA files in 2014. Successful for storing super soldiers, that is. Wakanda has the required knowledge and technological capability. Everything he knows about T’Challa assures him the man won’t allow the reanimation of the Winter Soldier. The first time they meet in person, T’Challa tells Bucky of the Black Panther. How close he was to being arrested with Steve in Bucharest. How grateful he is Bucky helped him find his way off the path of vengeance. How it grieves him to be unable to do more to ease the rift in the Avengers.

Bucky leaves two letters for Steve with T’Challa. One for now and one for if Steve decides to leave the Avengers and come to Wakanda. He sends another to Tony Stark. From what he’s seen on the news broadcasts, the man has yet to learn what happened December 16, 1991. Time, distance, and the certainty the Winter Soldier will remain benign is all Bucky can offer him.

In the end, going back under is, as the Romanians he’s been living among might say, as easy as saying hello.


End file.
